A fortune-teller told me

by Tiziano Terzani

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Biography & Autobiography. Travel. Nonfiction. HTML:Warned by a Hong Kong fortune-teller not to risk flying for a whole year, Tiziano Terzani — a vastly experienced Asia correspondent — took what he called “the first step into an unknown world. . . . It turned out to be one of the most extraordinary years I have ever spent: I was marked for death, and instead I was reborn.”
Traveling by foot, boat, bus, car, and train, he visited Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, China, show more Mongolia, Japan, Indonesia, Singapore, and Malaysia. Geography expanded under his feet. He consulted soothsayers, sorcerers, and shamans and received much advice — some wise, some otherwise — about his future. With time to think, he learned to understand, respect, and fear for older ways of life and beliefs now threatened by the crasser forms of Western modernity. He rediscovered a place he had been reporting on for decades. And it reinvigorated him.
The result is an immensely engaging, insightful, and idiosyncratic journey, filled with unexpected delights and strange encounters. A bestseller and major prizewinner in Italy, A Fortune-Teller Told Me is a powerful warning against the new missionaries of materialism.
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18 reviews
The late Italian journalist Tiziano Terzani covered southern and South-Eastern Asia through the horrors of Vietnam, Pol Pot, and all the other debacles. In response to a fortune-teller’s warning he decided not to fly for a year and only travelled by surface means. In this memoir he pursues spirituality, culture, politics, and never fails to uncover interesting characters who provide enlightenment about life and events not widely understood in the west. His excellent insight was a real eye opener.
½
Prima lettura 2010.
Libro celebratissimo, a cui si fa risalire la spiritualità di Terzani, è una ottima prova di giornalismo di viaggio, con molta autocelebrazione e una spiritualità secondo me un po' di accatto.
Verso la fine diventa anche stucchevole e noioso.
P.S. Non me ne vogliano i terzaniani convinti, forse semplicemente non è il mio genere.
Too much philosophizing and ranting; Tiziano should have just kept to telling his experiences. Still, the parts on Singapore and its temples were interesting.
un libro con un titolo evocativo e pieno di suggestioni ; l'ho trovato molto coinvolgente e mai scontato nelle descrizioni e nelle riflessioni
In 1992, a fortune teller warns the author, an Italian journalist writing for the German Spiegel Magazine, not to fly during 1993. For a year, he travels by boat, truck, train, taxi all over the Asian continent and to Europe. The book is the result. Well written, of course, and a fascinating look at the Asian continent and its history fro a personal point of view.
interesting book with strange assumptions about the west....and the east. Still interesting, worth reading, and enjoyable.
Sono veramente felice di averlo letto, mi è sembrato di aver fatto veramente i viaggi di Terzani, mi sono lasciata completamente trasportare dalla sua magia. Sono incantata. http://www.lacasadialchemilla.com/2013/02/un-indovino-mi-disse-di-tiziano-terzan...

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Italian Literature
556 works; 41 members

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35 Works 2,626 Members
Tiziano Terzani has spent 25 years in Asia, reporting on its wars, revolutions, & upheavals for "Der Spiegel". He lives with his wife in New Delhi. (Bowker Author Biography)

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Common Knowledge

Canonical title
A fortune-teller told me
Original title
Un indovino mi disse
Original publication date
1995
Important places
Singapore

Classifications

Genres
Travel, Nonfiction, Biography & Memoir, General Nonfiction, Religion & Spirituality
DDC/MDS
915.04429History & geographyGeography & travelGeography of and travel in Asiasubdivisions and modified standard subdivisionsTravel; guidebooks1905-1945-1999
LCC
DS508.2 .T4713History of Europe, Asia, Africa and OceaniaAsiaHistory of AsiaEast Asia. The Far East
BISAC

Statistics

Members
740
Popularity
38,090
Reviews
18
Rating
(3.86)
Languages
9 — Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Slovenian, Spanish
Media
Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
ISBNs
33
ASINs
7